Crash Boom Bang

Today was Colin's last day of class! He starts exams in 1 1/2 weeks and then his final practicum runs from November 7th until December 9th. He's so close to completing everything that it feels sort of surreal.

We're definitely planning on renewing our visa's and staying longer, probably until August 2012. Colin will apply for a skilled graduate visa and we'll go from there. Our roommates are leaving at the end of December for a 2 or 3 month trip then moving back to Canada/USA and we don't want to stay in this house anymore nor look for new roommates. The property is great but the owners haven't been speedy with repairs and it's been frustrating. Our friend Erin has a room for rent and she lives 5 minutes from our current place, so that's our plan for 2012.

It sucked being away from family & turkey for Thanksgiving. Last year we celebrated it but this year we were unorganized and lacked gusto. When I was driving home on Monday all of the cars started crashing in front of me and my little wagon managed to stop just in time, so I was thankful for that. I think the first car must have been cut off and hit the brakes, but sydney-siders drive too close and it resulted in a 4 car collision. The rest of the drive home was spent in a daze just thanking God.

I have an extra day off this week due to a funeral that my boss is attending. I think I'll bake a pie to honor the day off. The boys will be home, probably studying, so I'll stay out of the way.

I wish I had a dog to play with.

E.

Queensland

Our drive up north was pretty fun. We stayed with friends the first night who live in a place called Macksville. They have 4 kids under 9 and had some in laws visiting who have 4 kids under 6! It was a wild and fun house to be in. The 6-year-old niece of our friends was born with a severe case of osteogenesis imperfecta and was such an incredible kid/family to meet. If Colin and I were to have a child with brittle bones, it would be so tempting to wrap her up in bubble wrap and never let her leave the house, but they’re amazing people and let her live normally.

After parting Macksville we continued north to a campground in Mebbin National Park and spent the night. It was a crazy and windey road to get there but well worth it, it was so beautiful and we had the whole place to ourselves.

The following morning we drove to the Gold Coast and walked around surfers paradise for a bit. Colin went on a ride called The Vomatron because he promised my brother that we’d go on it if we saw one. We wanted to make it to Brisbane though so we kept going north. We passed by all of these amazing theme and water parks but it was already late afternoon, so we thought we’d maybe go back the following day.

Once we got to Brisbane we drove around and checked out the sites a bit but there was really nothing we had planned on seeing there, so we drove to Ipswich, which is where Neil & Anita will hopefully be living next year if he gets into that particular campus. We couldn’t find a campground in the area and it was getting late, so we just stayed in a hotel and ate pizza.

The following day we looked into what theme park we wanted to go to but realized they were SO expensive that we just couldn’t justify it that day. We went back to surfers paradise to go swimming but once we got there all these clouds rolled in and it got incredibly windy so we got back in the car and started our descent south. We had planned on camping that night but the site we drove to was an hour+ out of the way and was closed. It had also been pouring on us for a couple of hours so instead we decided to just keep driving, and called our friend’s in Macksville to see if we could stay with them again. They are incredibly hospitable and so we stayed there Saturday night.

We made it back into Sydney on Sunday in order to avoid long weekend traffic and then spent today catching up on laundry, groceries etc.

E.

Road trip tomorrow

Sorry we've been crappy bloggers lately. It's currently 10:30pm, we just finished eating dinner, and I just put zucchini bread in the oven. There were so many bad time management decisions tonight. When I got home from work we thought it would be fun to go swimming, then after swimming we realized that we needed groceries for dinner, and Colin had made dough for pizza earlier so after cooking the meat, chopping the veges, making the sauce...all of a sudden it's 10:30.

Colin's off school this week, and I have a long weekend coming up, so I took Thursday & Friday off and we're driving up the coast starting tomorrow morning. We have 6 days to do whatever we want and we'd like to check out Brisbane, a) because we've never been there before and, b) Colin's brother, Neil, his wife Anita, and our niece, Aliza are all moving there in December. We haven't spent much time north of Sydney and there are so many sweet places between us and Brisbane that we'd like to check out.

Hopefully we'll have some fun pictures to post from our trip when we return.

E.

Student life

Let me start by saying I don't want you to feel sorry for us, we find it all very funny, and are enjoying the personal growth experienced through it.

Colin and I still have a bank account in Canada with some savings in it but we try to avoid using it so we have some funds for when we get home. That being said, lately we have been living pay cheque to pay cheque. It's not usually down to the dollar but this week we had an extra expense that we had been anticipating and coincidently I'm getting paid two days later than I normally would. It started this morning when I went for groceries. When I went through the self checkout, I selected that I wanted $20 cash out. My card was declined which was weird because I knew we had enough in our account. I tried again without the cash out selection, and my payment went through. Relief.

I headed home without stopping at our fruit and veg store because I didn't trust my bank card. I called Colin and asked him if he had bought anything today. "Oh yaaaaa, I paid for my CPR course today, is that alright?"

"Colin, I almost couldn't buy groceries and now we don't have enough money for gas."

"Oops, should I try and cancel the payment?"

"No, it's okay."

I still needed cilantro, lettuce and green onion so I went to our change jar and dumped a bunch in my wallet. 3 items were too many for me to remember without a shopping list, so I had to spread my visit into two, and paid the same cashier with 20 cent coins for my goods.

After dinner tonight Colin and I were discussing if we should fill our gas tank with our Canadian credit card and he decided that he would count out $13 in change and just put in that amount. I laughed and said that I would be mortified to pay with 65 coins but he insisted that he didn't care. Colin put $13.70 into the tank because he knew that he had an extra dollar in his wallet. Unfortunately we had miscalculated and he only had $12 in his pocket, plus the extra dollar. He told the cashier that he had more change in the car, which he did, but the guy felt sorry for him and told Colin not to worry about it.

I was watching this all from the car and dying with embarrassment. Colin is so unfazed by life's awkward moments.

Anyways, I get paid tomorrow and I'm so excited! As is our car.

E.

Video of our Canadian visit

This is just a little video of our Canadian trip that we put together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bcRH36vJt4&feature=player_embedded

vis-à-vis

We've been home for two weeks now and it feels like we never left. Going back to Canada for a visit was a tough reminder that we still had several months left until we were back for good. The last couple months have brought to light some interesting information regarding Colin's course and unfortunately, due to processing overload back at home, the earliest Colin would likely be able to write his entrance exams to work in Canada looks like September 2012. If we come home in February then he has to work as a kinesiologist for at least 7 months. I never thought we would do this, but last night we looked into extending our visa. If Colin were to get a decent job in Sydney then we'd consider staying an extra couple of months. Its a big maybe at this point, but definitely something we're considering. With our current visa we're allowed to stay until mid-march so we have lots of time to decide. I talked to my parents on skype today and explained our predicament. When I initially told my mom in 2009 that Colin was applying to schools in Australia she was heartbroken at the imaginary prospect that I'd live here forever. However, when they came to visit us last December, I was worried that my parents would end up moving to Australia and never leaving. My mom was thrilled that we were considering staying here longer and joked about coming to visit us again. It wouldn't surprise me!

Decisions decisions.

E.

This may take a while to read. May I suggest grabbing a snack?

After spending a whirlwind week and a half in Canada, we're back, and I can't believe it's over. I've been looking forward to our trip for 2 months and now that there is no longer this wonderful family time around the corner, I'm feeling a little bit sad.

We seriously had the best time visiting with everyone after being away for 1 1/2 years. Our flight there wasn't amazing, mostly because I couldn't sleep and we came close to missing our flight from LA to Vancouver. We learned a lesson to never ever ever go through LAX ever again. Live and learn. It's just too hectic there. But we arrived in Vancouver and were welcomed home with a song and some fresh baked bread (props to Anita) and nachos (props to Adelle) and some fruit (props to plants and trees of the world).

Day 1- mostly consisted of silliness and hanging out, meeting our beautiful niece, Aliza, then hitting the sack after being awake for 36 hours. Played soccis.

Day 2- Granville Island with the family, followed by a Kroeger side of the extended family get together. Played Soccis.

Day 3- Obtained sunburn bikeriding and Soccising in the morning. Houle extended family birthday party for Aunty Gina/family get together. Played soccis.

Day 4- Got my hair cut by Colin's cousin, Rebecca. Played ball hockey with Anita's family in the evening. Played Soccis.

Day 5- Flew to rainy Calgary at 7am, met by my family. Hung out around home playing with our nephews and trying to get Karl, our 1 1/2 year old nephew, to like us. My dad's 65th birthday party was in the evening and we got to see the majority of our extended family and family friends.

Day 6- Went to the Calgary zoo, where we walked, talked and squawked with the animals. My cousin Kyle and his lovely wife, Jamie came over in the evening for a game of apples to apples.

Day 7- Got up early to go swimming with Pete, Jenna, and our nephews, Søren and Karl. We had the best time playing on the slides and under a giant bucket of water that crash from the ceiling every 10 minutes. Came home to have a Danish feast that my mom had been preparing all morning. Left for the airport, with a quick stop at the store to pick up a special gift for Colin from Pete and Jenna. That gift will probably get it's own post from Colin. Left Calgary in the afternoon and flew back to Vancouver.

Met at the airport by Grandma Houle who took us to St.Luke's for a VBS pot-luck. It was finger-lickin' good because my mother in law contributed a bucket of KFC.

Played soccis in the evening.

Day 8- Hiked the chief. Came home and some friends came over for a visit. Played soccis.

Day 9- Went canoeing through Widgeon Creek, hiked up to some waterfalls. Talked all day long about how we were going out for Mexican food in the evening. Went out for Mexican food, called to confirm our non-reservation on the way, after much confusion we almost didn't get Mexican food and they stayed open late for the Kroeger family. Mark saved the day and we had the best and cheapest Mexican food this side of Los Angeles, but not including Marcus' mom's food, because she's the best cook. If you live in Vancouver, go to Taqueria Jalisco in Surrey, but don't tell them that I sent you because I caused some stress. Played a painful game of soccis.

Day 10- Church in the morning followed by a costco shopping trip. Came home and everyone was feelin lazy. Colin and I went wine shopping and ended up buying and eating a flat of raspberries. Came home to a family thinking we had crashed because we had been gone so long and aren't good drivers in Canada anymore. Went boating/wake-boarding for some. Boat broke down in the middle of Dees Slew, had to start paddling, then were saved by a boat angel who knows how to boat engines. Continued boating until hunger took over, then went home and made the best home-made pizza's ever. Our secret: Fig and goat cheese from costco. Friends came over the evening. Played soccis.

Day 11- Woke up early, Colin went golfing with Tyler, Paul, and Neil. I went for a bike ride with Adelle, Debbie, Mark and Molly. Then we went in the hot tub, played soccis, packed, ate perogies, and drove to the airport with a quick stop to buy me some shampoo and new ear buds.

Our flight home was pretty interesting because 20% of our flight consisted of men returning to LA after the gay pride parade. I accidently saw some horrifying pictures on the gentleman's ipad that was sitting next to us. After we boarded the plane in LAX we sat waiting an hour while the pilot explained we were waiting for papers, and a flight attendant yelled at me from many aisles away for standing up to get something from my bag. Everyone watched and listened. After she yelled at me people waited until she had walked away and started running when they had to use the toilet or were quicker than me when retrieving their stuff from above. We sat with and behind this 4 guy dance crew from Australia and they were hilarious. All the flight attendants were SUPER nice to them.

Our friend, Nat picked us up from the airport and we came home to a lonely house full of coldness. After showering the stink off of us, our bathroom mirror fell to the floor and broke into a million pieces. Not sure what this means.

We've spent the day doing stuff that awake people do. We washed clothes, went out for Indian lunch since we had no food (there was a misunderstanding and we got a double order of what we were planning on just sharing), shopped for groceries, went to Colin's school to pick up some kind of educational thingy, then played soccis with our roommates.

Colin's making chicken souvlaki now and I thiiiiiink I can stay up for 3-4 more house. We'll see.

And that's our crazy last week and a half.

If you're still reading this super long post, I'm sorry that I'm too tired not to condense it but am too excited not to write it all out.

Also, please forgive any grammar/spelling/and general non-sensical non-information I may have written. I'm really sleepy.

E.